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| Southeast Asia |
| JI funding Philippines violence |
| 2005-11-15 |
| he Jemaah Islamiah, a regional militant network linked with al Qaeda, has trained Muslim rebels in the Philippines and given funds to carry out attacks, a state prosecutor said on Tuesday, quoting testimony from a former rebel. Emmanuel Velasco told reporters that the JI, blamed for a string of bombings in Indonesia, had taught bomb-making techniques to members of the Rajah Solaiman Movement, a radical Muslim convert group in the Philippines. "The people who trained us in bomb-making are foreign members from JI," Velasco quoted Malik Alimuddin, a member of the Rajah Solaiman group, as saying in an eight-page sworn statement. Velasco said Alimuddin, who was arrested last month, had agreed to become a government witness, linking other members of his group to bomb attacks in the country in February 2004 and this year. Alimuddin's statement detailed his group's role in future terrorist plots in the Philippines, using Muslim converts to carry out the attacks. He said the Jemaah Islamiah funnelled money into a bank account he was asked to open last year in the southern port city of Zamboanga. Alimuddin was arrested last month along with seven members of the Rajah Solaiman Movement at a rebel hideout in Zamboanga City. They were charged with rebellion together with Ahmad Islam Santos, founder and leader of the Muslim convert group. Authorities said a suspected Rajah Solaiman member had planted a bomb that caused a fire and sank a domestic ferry at the mouth of Manila bay in February 2004, killing more than 100 people -- the worst terrorist attack in the Philippines. Alimuddin's group also helped carry out coordinated bombings in Manila and two southern cities on Valentine's Day this year that killed a dozen people and wounded about a hundred others, police said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |